5 Things Civil Engineers Should Stop Doing Now
STOP the “we’ve always done it this way” approach.
POV: You use feature lines to create an entire road with curb and gutter, or maybe you explode a Civil 3D object. You may be comfortable with the way you’ve always done it, but that’s not always the best way. When it comes to getting your team up to speed, where do you start?
ATG’s Civil Consulting Services are a great place to start if you need to level up your skills. From just the essentials to more advanced techniques and workflows, our certified professionals can train you and your team in Civil 3D, AutoCAD, InfraWorks, Map 3D, Bluebeam, Innovyze, and ArcGIS Pro via onsite, remote or hybrid methods. If you need high level assistance or training on a project, our project mentorship services are the perfect follow-up for training. Don’t wait until you have some downtime to start!
As an engineer, you’re constantly on a deadline, and as you move from one project to the next, you don’t always have downtime to work on improving your processes. You’re stuck with the way you’ve always done it, so you can never get ahead. With ATG’s Civil Production Services, we can help you execute on your project and free up much needed time to evaluate your team and workflows. We can even help you with the assessment process!
STOP being a victim of The Great Resignation.
According to Joblist’s 2022 Trends US Job Market Report, nearly three out of four full-time employees (74%) and more than half part-time employees (51%) plan on quitting their jobs in 2022. Some people have just decided to leave the workforce, while others have found better opportunities elsewhere. And if that person was someone with a lot of industry experience, that usually means they covered more than one role, so now you need two people to do the work of one. What do you do?
One of the best things you can do to avoid The Great Resignation is invest in your team. With ATG’s Civil Consulting Services, we can help you get a head-start on content creation with a Civil 3D starter template, custom template setup and creation, tool palette setup and more. Prepare your team to take on any project or challenge with a wide range of training options to choose from. If you need CAD management services, we can be your CAD manager — you’ll have a dedicated industry professional that can help with business process assessment, software deployment and more.
STOP saying NO to new work because you don’t have the staff.
If you’re overwhelmed by project work or losing jobs because you don’t have the staff, you’re not alone. You and many others are forced to turn down project work and postpone vital projects like improving templates or evaluating standards. Tight deadlines cause you to lose focus on the quality of your work, which leads to rework and even more stress. If this sounds familiar, our production services may be the perfect fit.
With ATG’s Civil Production Services, you can put our team of technical specialists to work with commercial and residential site development, transportation work, GIS mapping, construction documentation and more, allowing you to win more work, transform your workflows, protect your billable hours and grow your business.
STOP using the same old broken template and standards.
Many firms tend to overload their company template with too many elements. All those elements — layers, objects, styles and more — can really add up, especially if your company’s template hasn’t been updated in a few years. The more elements you have in your template, the longer it takes to load a project.
The other problem? No one has the time to sit down and clean up the template because there are so many things to consider. What do you keep? What do you extract? Cleaning up your template to an ideal state can take days, even weeks to accomplish.
If you’re overwhelmed by the state of your template or simply don’t have the time to clean it, look to ATG’s Civil Consulting Services as your solution. Our from-industry Civil team can help you evaluate your current template and help you determine what elements are the best fit, and which ones are not. We can even create a custom template for you! With an optimized template, you can maintain consistent deliverables no matter who is working on your plans.
STOP neglecting the power of your toolbox.
With so many options at your disposal, it’s easy to overlook your software and hardware toolbox. But in reality, neglecting these tools can actually cost you time and money. Think about the Autodesk AEC Collection — so many engineers use it, but do they use it to its fullest potential? Tools like InfraWorks and Vehicle Tracking are a great addition to your toolbox for design and analysis. Evaluate your toolbox on a regular basis and research industry trends to identify which tools fit your workflows.
From software to hardware, to support and services, ATG can be a part of your toolbox. As an Autodesk and Bluebeam Platinum Partner, we don’t just provide software, support and training, we also back it with a team of certified experts ready to help you take on any project or challenge.
Another way to improve your workflows is to use Civil 3D software plugins. Tools like CIM Project Suite and CIM Manager Suite from CTC Software can help you streamline tedious tasks like site grading, sheet production, layer and linetype creation, and more. The best part? ATG can train and support these tools, too!
While your software toolbox is extremely important, you also need to consider what you’re running the software on. If you’ve even been stuck on a spinning wheel, it may be time for a new computer. BIMBOX computers are built specifically for AEC workflows like modeling, rendering and more. As the exclusive provider of BIMBOX, we back this power with a full 3-year warranty!
